Donna Genie (YouTube video) discusses practical considerations for campground owners around early check-in and late checkout policies. She focuses on problems late checkouts cause—delaying site turnover and cleanup for incoming guests—and offers operational responses such as denying late checkout when another guest is arriving, offering alternative sites, or limiting late checkout to a specific time (e.g., noon or 1:00 pm).
Hey, I'm seeing lots of talk about early check in fees, late checkout fees, fees, fees, fees. So let's talk about it. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. I understand as campground owners, you want to make sure you have a set of rules and guidelines and everybody knows what they are and can stick to them. But let's really dive into the nuts and bolts of early check in and late checkout. So let's take the easy one first. Late checkout can cause problems because you've got to get that site ready for somebody else who's arriving. And you need to get the traffic out of the park so that your cleanup crew can make sure that everything is ready for the oncoming upcoming arrivals before your check in time. Do you have someone else coming in for that site? If you do, it's a no brainer. They've got to go. You got to tell them that someone else is coming in, but you can't accommodate that request for a late checkout. But let's see, do you have any other sites available that they could move to if they wanted to spend another day with you, or are they just trying to push the bounds and see how far they can go and sleep in a little? If that's possible, you can offer a late checkout limited, maybe they've got to be out by one o' clock or by noon.
